Tampa Bay Regional Transportation Summit
As I walked around outside the
meeting room I was struck that most of the people attending wore
suits and were by their name tags from someplace; municipality or
business, not too many ordinary citizens like me. Though I did
manage to sit next to a young woman without any affiliations and
there was also an elderly black gentleman. But you definitely got
the impression most people there had a professional interest in what
was going to be said.
The first speaker was Joe Lopano,
CEO of Tampa international Airport, who proudly proclaimed that Tampa
was the number one airport in the country. He explained that there
was a lot of innovation involved like the people mover between the
main terminal and the air sides. He really gushed over them,
actually, for reasons made clear later. Then County Commissioner,
Mark Sharpe, gave a general rah-rah speech without really saying
anything. This was followed by Stuart Rogel from Tampa Bay
Partnership who stated transportation and education were what he
considered the highest priorities.
Republican Representative John
Mica-Fl then spoke by video and he is a big advocate of “fixed”
transit as some like to call light rail. He bragged about federal
funding he has obtained for Florida for the Sun Rail. He urged us to
keep trying to get transit projects together so he could help get
more federal funds for them. He even implored us to ignore the
results of the referendum and to keep bringing it up and how it took
other cities several attempts before passing some kind of local
funding.
Next came a
very interesting presentation from Rusty Roberts from All Aboard
Florida, the privately funded venture to construct a passenger rail
line from Miami to Orlando with stops in FT Lauderdale and West Palm
Beach. He detailed how far along they were towards getting it
running. I was impressed with all the level of competence their
plans showed. I sincerely wish them success though I remain
skeptical about if trains will make a profitable comeback as a mode
of passenger transportation. There is a reason in the second half of
the last century why passenger rail ridership decreased as highways
and the travel hospitality industry made the car practical for long
distance excursions along with the advancement of commercial
airlines. Just one of the reasons why I was against the high-speed
rail.
Mike Wacht discussed central
Orlando’s Sun Rail, commuter line between area towns which is
slated to have a total cost of 620 million dollars with 2/3 of that
going to CSX for the tracks.(Which was way too much per mile I feel)
I He gave a rousing story about the first phase and only time will
tell how optimistic the predicted use will be. Also from Central
Florida was Harry Barley with MetroPlan Orlando. He went over a plan
to improve I-4 for 21 miles starting from the exit for Universal.
According to him, two managed toll lanes in each direction will be
added.
More user fees in the form of toll
lanes was a recurring theme from this point and was emphasized by
FDOT District 7 Secretary who warned that federal funds for
transportation was unsustainable and that local municipalities would
have to rely more on internal financing. This does seem to be in
contrast to the attitude of the endless money spigot that
Representative Mica displayed.
Up again was Joseph Lopano and
he explained the new array of improvements for Tampa Airport.
Specifically, they are going to move to an area south of the
terminals all the rental car operations and connect it to there with
a people mover. This will free up a lot of space in the long term
parking garage for more cars to park which would then generate more
revenue. With the new people mover at the new location it could also
act as another drop-off and pick up point helping to decrease
congestion at the main terminal. He went to say a hotel and office
building could also be in the works for there, but I think he is
overreaching. Just like his desire to extend the people mover to a
“multi-modal” center in the Westshore area. This is why, I
believe, was what was behind his earlier gushing over the airport
shuttles. I don’t think he cares about light rail anywhere else.
He did have a point about his complaint that there is no direct bus
route between the airport and downtown.
The most fixed feelings I had
occurred when Brad Miller, the CEO of Pinellas Suncoast Transit,
spoke. In the first half he laid out a whole series of steps that
would vastly improve the bus system including more routes that would
run more hours. Then he had to claim that a light rail line was
needed between St Pete and Clearwater to aid economic development.
To pay for this on the 2014 ballot will a proposal to add a 1% sales
tax for a decrease in property tax. He claims that this will only be
$10 more per year on the average family because tourists will absorb
a good portion of the increase.
Polk County weighed in with a
brief look at a comprehensive plan resulting from a lot of customer
input to connect his large county with many municipalities financed
by a proposed 1 cent sales tax surcharge.
There were other
speakers, but none more pertinent then Ronnie Duncan head of TBARTA.
He first began by telling a story about a trip to Home Depot to buy a
toilet seat and how he found so many different varieties and he
brought out one to illustrate his point which was that transportation
needed many different solutions. Variety was also a recurring
theme throughout the morning. And to be fair he did talk about
numerous types of transportation like freight and shipping. But
what revealed his true intention was a slide during his presentation
listing challenges to their plans. On the bottom was listed “Not
convinced of light rail.” In a real Freudian slip he read it as
“Not yet convinced of light rail.” And in a
nutshell that seemed to sum up a subtle underlying mindset of a
majority of the people in that room. Light rail was a forgone
conclusion even if everybody doesn’t realize it yet.
But at the end of the summit the
floor opened up for questions and I thought I would confront a little of their base assumption. I asked, “Could someone please explain how
light rail is better in creating economic development than a bus
rapid transit would servicing the same route?” Ray Chiramonte from
Hillsborough Planning Commission answered by professing that it was
the permanent nature of light rail that made it better. That people
would know it was always there. Then he made it personal by talking
about how he would love to work and live next to a rail station. He
finished it up by bringing up variety and Duncan’s toilet seat as
an analogy. I countered with “But there wasn’t a huge difference
in prices for those toilet seats like there is between light rail and
a metro rapid transit.”
Of course, he had no real answer
since light rail costs at least 50 times per mile than a metro rapid
transit. Just like his original reply was a lame cover-up for the
fact that they want light rail not for transportation and the
economic growth they talk about is really the millions of taxpayer
dollars to be channeled to politically connected cronies for business
redevelopment around the stations. The result of their intentions
is for a sliver of the county to have a super expensive public
transit while a few profit immensely from effort to herd more people
into that corridor to try to ensure its use.
Eric Greenbaum
Concerned Hillsborough resident
Eric Greenbaum
Concerned Hillsborough resident
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Thank you very much Eric for your insightful and truthful report of what really occurred at last Thursday's Transportation summit. This confirms yet again the same crowd continues to talk to themselves. We would like to know why HART wasn't there. Why was Hillsborough's local transit agency left out of this summit? Inquiring minds want to know.
But it's only in Tampa where our transportation leaders compare transportation to toilet seats.
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